Breathing hard, he rose shakily to his feet and bowed his head once, hastily. "Thank you for my life, Master Luminara."

She accepted his thanks with a nearly imperceptible dip of her own head. "Your life is your own, Anakin, and not mine to give or take." He thought he detected a twinkle in her eye. "I merely helped preserve it." Approaching, she startled him by casually slipping an arm around his back. The feel of it was astonishingly comforting. It reminded him of something nearly forgotten. "Come with me. I'll stand the rest of your shift."

"But you're not due to come on for another hour yet," he protested.

Once more, she flashed that warming, knowing smile at him. "For some strange reason, I'm suddenly wide awake. It's all right, Padawan. Consider this just another learning experience. One you will learn from-won't you?"

It was a rhetorical question, one he knew he did not have to acknowledge. But he did anyway.

"When one hears the sound of a lightsaber springing to life in the middle of the night in a strange place on a strange world, one knows it is not being triggered for purposes of amusement. I believe I reached you just in time."

Feeling better with every step, he nodded agreement. "If any one wants to ask me, I think I can tell them all they want to know about the collaborative attack tactics of the stalking shanh."

" Probably more than they would want to know." They were al ready back at the camp. Her arm slid off his back. "Get some sleep, Anakin. Don't worry about me. I'm used to this sort of thing."

It would have been churlish of him to protest further. Finding his bed, he fell rather than lay back onto it, not even bothering to slip into the sack. Not far away, Kyakhta and Bulgan slept on. Another shape moved slightly, awake but not rising from its bed. Bending down close to him, Luminara murmured something to Obi-Wan, who listened closely, nodded once, and lay back down. Anakin waited for the disapproval that was to come. Thankfully, his teacher was wise enough, or empathetic enough, to say nothing. In truth, no additional commentary was necessary.

That didn't stop Barriss from looking up from her own place of rest. She didn't say anything-just stared at him. He stood it for as long as he could, which was about a minute.

"All right, all right," he muttered. "Go ahead and say it."

"Say what?" she asked innocently. There was as much mischief in her expression as in her voice.

"You know." He fumbled irritably with his bedding. "That I was derelict in my duty. That I was daydreaming in the middle of the night. That I didn't pay attention to what I was doing. Whatever."

"I was just wondering if you were okay."

He remembered his shoulder. His anger at himself had tem porarily masked the pain. Now it returned, full force. He was glad of the burning sensation, opening himself to it, welcoming it. He deserved it. Just as he deserved whatever condemnation Barriss might now choose to bestow.

That, however, was not her intent. "I wonder if Master Yoda, who only knows lightsaber technique, would have been caught off guard like that." Leaving him with a last smile, she rolled over to resume her own interrupted sleep.

An angry retort sprang immediately to mind, but he did not give voice to it. She was right, of course. More than right. She had given him something else to think about, something more to ponder. Turning onto his back, wincing at the fiery pain in his shoulder, he considered the stars from a different perspective than he had earlier that night.

There was more to mastering the Force than moving objects from point to point. One had to be conscious of it at all times, not just in moments of danger. It was not armor, always present to protect those who knew something of its ways. It responded only to conscious effort, to awareness. That was his problem, he realized. He was aware only part of the time.

It wouldn't happen again, he swore. From now on, he would be with the Force at all times, rather than waiting for it to be with him. Yet again, it had been brought home to him how much he did not yet know.

Fortunately, he was a fast learner.

Chapter 15

They had gathered not in the formal surroundings of the city's municipal hall, but in the garden of the abode of Kandah, one of the Unity delegates who would vote on whether or not to pull Ansion out of the Republic. Enclosed on four sides by the two stories of the residence itself, the courtyard was alive with flowers and fountains. Like the house, everything had been paid for from the profits Kandah's family had acquired through years of trade. Those profits would have been much higher, she reflected as she watched her fellow representatives stroll the meandering pathways, had they not been subject to the confiscatory and arbitrary taxes of the Republic.

If all went well, those obstacles to even greater wealth would soon be removed.

The courtyard had been designed as a place of refuge from the noise and activity of the city beyond. Today it provided privacy of a different sort to the gathering of representatives and their aides. The latter were gradually dismissed, until only the senior officials remained, holding their refreshments and questions until all could assemble together beside a translucent fountain spewing scented water.

"It's premature." This from Garil Volune, one of the human delegates. "They haven't been gone that long."

"Be realistic, Volune," declared one of the male Ansionians. "They should have been back by now." He gestured toward the main street outside the courtyard and the house. "They should have been back days ago."

"The Jedi wouldn't abandon us," another delegate insisted. "It's not their way. Even if their attempt to make the Alwari see reason failed, they would return to tell us so."

Delegate Fargane, tallest and most educated of the four na tive Ansionians present, waved his tumbler angrily. "They have comlinks. They should have contacted us by now. Whether to speak of success or failure matters not so much to me. I ask only that those who desire my vote be polite." An irritated hissing noise emanated from his single nostril. "I can stand to be proven wrong, but I don't like being ignored."

Towering over them all, Tolut offered a dissenting opinion. "Maybe they are having trouble with their comlinks."

Volune looked up at him in disbelief. The smaller human delegate was not intimidated by the bulky Armalat. "All four of them?"

Tolut gestured petulantly. He was no happier with the con tinuing lack of contact on the part of the visiting Jedi than were his colleagues. "We don't know that they each carry one. Maybe they only took two with them. Two could break."

"Comlinks just don't break down like that." Kandah took a deep breath. "If these Jedi are as competent as their kind are rumored to be, one would think they would carry necessary replacement parts, or spares. Yet still we hear nothing from them."